Aston Martin’s drivers are at risk of permanent nerve damage to their hands if they run for too many laps with the intense vibrations that the new AMR26 produces, team boss Adrian Newey has revealed.

In a remarkable revelation that emerged on the eve of the F1 season opener in Australia, Newey laid bare the consequences of the problems that have been encountered in testing.

While engine supplier Honda said that battery reliability problems it has suffered as being caused by the car vibrations, Newey says that there are wider consequences for Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.

And he says that until the problems are solved, it is impossible for Alonso and Stroll to drive for very long at all without the vibrations triggering potential health consequences.

Speaking at a packed press conference in the Albert Park paddock on Thursday morning, Newey said that running would be limited to well short of a race distance.

"The important thing to understand though, is that the battery is the thing that we have been focusing on because that's the critical item," Newey explained.

"Without giving away any technical details, what we have achieved this weekend, for this weekend, it tested on the dyno, over the course of the weekend and got to the solution that we proposed, which we will be using here at Melbourne.

"That has successfully, significantly reduced the vibration going into the battery. But what is important to remember is effectively the PU, i.e. the combination of the ICE and possibly the MGU as well, is the source of the vibration; it's the amplifier.

"The chassis is, in that scenario, the receiver. A carbon chassis is a naturally stiff structure with very little damping. So the transmission of that vibration into the chassis, we haven't made any progress on.

"So that vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems. Mirrors falling off, taillights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address.

"But the much more significant problem with that is that that vibration is transmitted ultimately into the driver's fingers.

"So Fernando is of the feeling that he can't do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage to his hands. Lance is of the opinion that he can't do more than 15 laps before that threshold.

"So to be, I think there's no point in being open and honest in this meeting on our expectations. It's something that's unfortunate, Koji [Watanabe] and I haven't had a chance to discuss properly prior to this meeting.

"We are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race until we get on top of the source of the vibration and improve these vibration at source."

Honda has said that countermeasures introduced for the Australian Grand Prix will mean that performance will continue to be pegged back.

But while the situation looks bleak at the moment for Aston Martin, Newey insists that there is potential in the package – as he reckoned it was the fifth fastest team chassis-wise.

“I look at our package and I don't feel as if we've particularly missed anything,” said Newey.

“So therefore I believe that the car has huge tremendous development potential in it.

“It will take of course a few races for us to fully realise that potential. We've got quite an aggressive development plan underway. So I think it's fair to say that here in Melbourne we are a bit behind the leaders.

“Probably I would say maybe we're the fifth best team, so sort of potential Q3 qualifiers on the chassis side. Obviously not where we want to be, but with the potential to be upfront at some point in the season.”